Milton's older houses, remodeled with care

Plaster, balloon framing and a 1944 median

Census figures put the median Milton home at 1944, and roughly 46 percent of the town's 9,500 or so housing units went up before 1940. Only about 8 percent were built after 2000. That is an old housing stock by any Massachusetts measure, and it shapes every remodel here long before a single cabinet is ordered. Brick chimneys, radiators and small closets are common in houses of that age, and each one affects where a new wall or cabinet run can go.

Older colonials and Victorians often hide balloon framing, where the studs run unbroken from the sill to the roof. When we open one of those walls we add fire blocking at each floor, because an open bay acts like a chimney. Plaster over wood lath comes down in heavy, dusty sheets, so we seal the work area and cover the floors and stairs you are keeping.

A house this age can also carry knob-and-tube wiring, cast iron drains and lead paint. Anything built before 1978 gets lead-safe work practices under the EPA renovation rule. When demo turns up old wiring or piping, a licensed electrician or plumber looks at it, and you hear about it from us the same day, along with what it means for the schedule and the price.

If a wall you want gone carries a load, we tell you before anyone swings a hammer, and the beam gets sized and permitted properly.

Owners who stay, and kitchens that have to last

About 84 percent of Milton homes are owner occupied, and close to three quarters are single-family detached. Those numbers describe people living in the house they are remodeling and planning to stay. The work that follows tends to be a kitchen rebuild, a primary bath, a finished third floor or an addition off the back. A finished third floor in a house this old often means a steep stair, low knee walls and an attic that was never insulated well.

In an older house the hard part is making new work look like it belongs. We match casing profiles and baseboard heights, keep openings in proportion with the rest of the rooms, and check floors for level before tile goes down, since a floor from the 1920s rarely is. If a wall you want gone carries a load, we tell you before anyone swings a hammer, and the beam gets sized and permitted properly.

Structural work runs under the Massachusetts State Building Code, 780 CMR, with a permit from the town building department and inspections along the way, typically rough framing, rough electrical and plumbing, insulation and final. Steve holds an unrestricted Construction Supervisor License, the license that covers supervising that work on one- and two-family homes.

A 22-mile drive north, and how the job is run

Milton sits roughly 22 miles north of our shop in Raynham, on the southern edge of Boston. That distance means we plan deliveries and inspections ahead instead of reacting to them. Items with long lead times, like custom cabinets or special order tile, get ordered once the written scope is signed, not after the kitchen is already gutted. Inspections are booked so the inspector sees rough framing before insulation hides it, which keeps the job from stalling.

Older houses here also tend to sit on fieldstone or early poured foundations. If your plan includes an addition, new footings go below frost depth, commonly about four feet in Massachusetts, and we look hard at where the new foundation meets the old one before anything gets drawn.

The company exists because Steve spent years working for contractors who did not communicate. So a Milton job starts with a walkthrough and a written scope, changes are written down and priced before the work happens, and the site is swept and secured at the end of each day. As customers put it, "If its not right; Steve wont put his name on it!"